We need to project some film during a forthcoming show..... need some advice from you teckie bods on the best way to do this. Not being in the know any advice would be gratefully received.

Chris, there was a topic that covered this. I've had a look but I can't find it. I'm sure Martin will know where it is though. Other than that, I'm sure people will let you know anyway.

Chris ...... Will I do?

A couple of questions first of all. Are you genuinely projecting film, or video? The latter is easier to control and gives other facilities. A film projector needs an operator and will make a noise. In my answers below, I've assumed it's video or graphics running on a modern projector rather than film.

As a general rule, back projection is better as it's (normally) harder for actors to walk across the beam and the beam is not visible to the audience. However, as with anything that's foolproof, it does so depend on the quality of the fool. If you are back projecting, you have a special screen that you point the projector at. Most modern graphics projectors (as used with video) have a facility that allows to to mirror image the signal so from the front it read's the right way round. If you can't back project, get the projector as close as possible to the screen. Try to aboid projecting across the auditorium at all costs.

Make sure you get a projector that will compensate for being projected on a screen at an angle as it's normally impossible to get the projector mounted at the right height. If you think about it, if the projector is up high, the top of the screen will be narrower than the bottom giving a funny shape image. The facility is called Keystone correction.

You will have to consider how much light will hit the screen from other sources. Even very powerful projectors will fade to nothing under bright stage lighting so that part of the set needs to be carefully screened from the normal lighting. Again, get as powerful projector as you can; I can't see any situation when you would have too bright an image.

Martin will probably add so more, but this should get you started. As I said at the beginning, I would think long and hard before using real film.

Robin

We experimented with film in a succession of productions some twenty-plus-plus years ago, so you can imagine that video was not so far advanced as it is today. We used Super 8 (would you believe) and projected from the control box to hit the cyclorama dead on, well inside the Audience's view but above the spill of lighting.

In other words - they're dead right - contrast is everything: the projector beam cannot compete with stage lighting... and beware of distortion.

When the shows went down, the films sort of 'disappeared', so I guess they're in someone's collection somewhere, but the effects we achieved were splendid. I still have some collections of bits spliced after I rescued them from 'rge cutting room floor'. Naturally, our days on location, shooting the film, were enormously memorable and a hell of a lot of fun. It shows in the memmentos.

Can you still get Super 8 film processed? Oddly, I still have all of the equipment which we enjoy revisiting on cosy winter evenings when the usual dross is on telly.

If anyone knows Joe Orton's 'The Good and Faithful Servant", you'll know how we projected the wedding scenes onto the cyce above Granma and Grandad as he lay in bed, dying, and she showed him the chaotic event in her photo-album. We saw the pictures moving like memories in their minds.. 'Servant' is a long one-acter, so we created a preceding play in workshop: it showed how the manufacturing company was created out of social necessity, before it became the brainless, heartless monolith that Joe Orton created. Having set up film for 'Servant' we also used it in the Act One play, to very great effect.

There, I'm rambling on again. As stated, we used film in two other productions. The Audiences loved it, as did adjudicators.

The fact is that Theatre has not changed since the storytellers tramped from community to community. Only electronic technology has changed and I see no reason why we should not take every advantage of that fact.

The basic rule is this: if it works, include it; if it doesn't work, kick it out!

Also quite a lot depends on your show. I was so nervous in "Return to the Forbidden Planet" that it might not work (my first time using any sort of projection on stage) that I ran the whole thing through a computer data projection system, and ran rear-projection video at the same time so that we could switch straight across if anything happened.

As it happens, the video never actually had to be used, but it made me sleep easier at nights as the show couldn't go ahead without the "TV screen". But it certainly ate into the budget to run both, even with the help of a local video company.

Remember all this is reasonably expensive.

I'm in two minds about projecting in my Forbidden Planet....

The Audience isn't that far away...
I think we could get away with 2 Large Screen TVs either side of the Stage...

An option if you don't have a huge Audience pit...

See if you can get your local Dixons to supply them (for free advertising).

Applogies for lateness Chris

Everything posted so far pretty much covers the issue. I would suggest that your best altenitiv it to project your film/image using an LCD projector and computer - recording to film onto computer gives you all the editing capacity you'll need (George and Robin are the best for that) and LCD projectors are small compact and have all the adjestments for Keystone correction etc (see Robins post)

You can back project sucessfully onto a gauze

Back projection is really the only way to go - mage size is important too but the bigger the image the dimmer it will be (you have to spread the finite amount of light over a bigger area) If you have trouble with distance behind the screen to project - then use mirrors to bounce the image over a greater distance and therefore get a bigger image.



George....... After seeing your auditorium I think you'll lose all impact of the images using TV's plus they'll be hard to see The images need to be big - Better to have 1 or 2 large screens at the rear of the stage

I'm experimenting at the moment...

I'll let you know how I get on...

The important bit is that you have NO LIGHT BLEED at all on the screen...
No matter how powerful the projector is it will degrade the picture on the screen a LOT..

As for computers, I'll be running the RTTFP videos etc from computer...
Video as back up of course running out to the same SCART plug.

I'll be using pieces of software...

Media Centre - For Slideshows.
WIM AMP / Windows Media centre for Computer Effects to the music also a Live Video feed.